A Nevada state judge today rewrote a misleading ballot initiative to make clear it is designed to ban all abortions and other vital women’s health services by granting legal protections to fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses. The initiative was originally worded in such vague and misleading terms that it failed to make clear the far-reaching the effects the initiative would have on Nevada law.

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“This misleading initiative could have tricked voters into supporting a measure that would have banned a range of vital health services,” said Dane S. Claussen, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada. “We’re relieved that the court refused to allow proponents to deceive voters in this manner.”

This is an important step in defeating these nasty personhood initiatives — the anti-choice gambitdu jour to do an end-run around Roe v Wade abortion protections — which keep popping up in Nevada like cockroaches (didn’t we just squash one last year?). In fact, Nevada is targeted as one of six states with proposed personhood initiatives in the 2011/2012 presidential election cycle (this fall voters already quashed personhood initiatives in Colorado and Mississippi).

These initiatives go all-in to destroy not just a woman’s access to abortion, but it also challenges the legality of other forms of health care including certain birth control and fertility procedures. Here, I’ll let Planned Parenthood’s Annette Magnus explain in this News3 clip.

Next up is a hearing today (2:30 pm in First Judicial District Court in Carson City) to tackle the other personhood initiative.